The Bars of Iron

by Ethel M. Dell

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE PROMISE

  After all, it was Crowther who broke that tragic silence; perhaps becausehe could bear it no longer. The path on which they stood was deserted. Helaid a very steady hand upon Piers' shoulder with a compassionate glanceat the stony young face which a few minutes before had been so full ofabounding life.

  "It comes hard to you, eh, lad?" he said.

  Piers stirred, almost made as if he would toss the friendly hand away;but in the end he suffered it, though he would not meet Crowther's eyes.

  "You owe it to her," urged Crowther gently. "Tell her, lad! She's boundto be up against it sooner or later if you don't."

  "Yes," Piers said. "I know."

  He spoke heavily; all the youth seemed to have gone out of him. After amoment, as Crowther waited he turned with a gesture of hopelessness andfaced him. "I'm like a dog on a chain," he said. "I drag this way andthat, and eat my heart out for freedom. But it's all no use. I've got tolive and die on it." He clenched his hands in sudden passionaterebellion. "But I'm damned if I'm going to tell anybody! It's hell enoughwithout that!"

  Crowther's hand closed slowly and very steadily on his shoulder. "It'sjust hell that I want to save you from, sonny," he said. "It may seem thehardest part to you now, but if you shirk it you'll go further in still.I know very well what I'm saying. And it's just because you're man enoughto feel this thing and not a brute beast to forget it, that it's hurt youso infernally all these years. But it'll hurt you worse, lad, it'll wringyour very soul, if you keep it a secret between you and the woman youlove. It's a big temptation, but--if I know you--you're going to stand upto it. She'll think the better of you for it in the end. But it'll be ashadow over both your lives if you don't. And there are some things thateven a woman might find it hard to forgive."

  He stopped. Piers' eyes were hard and fixed. He scarcely looked as if heheard. From below them there arose the murmur of the moonlit sea. Closeat hand the trees in a garden stirred mysteriously as though they movedin their sleep. But Piers made neither sound nor movement. He stood likean image of stone.

  Again the silence began to lengthen intolerably, to stretch out into adesert of emptiness, to become fateful with a bitterness too poignant tobe uttered. Crowther said no more. He had had his say. He waited withunswerving patience for the result.

  Piers spoke at last, and there was a queer note of humour in hisvoice,--humour that was tragic. "So I've got to go back again, have I?Back to my valley of dry bones! There's no climbing the heights for me,Crowther, never will be. Somehow or other, I am always tumbled back."

  "You're wrong," Crowther said, with quiet decision. "It's the only wayout. Take it like a man, and you'll win through! Shirk it and--well,sonny, no shirker ever yet got anything worth having out of life. Youknow that as well as I do."

  Piers straightened himself with a brief laugh. "Yes, I know that much.But--I sometimes ask myself if I'm any better than a shirker. Life issuch a beastly farce so far as I am concerned. I never do anything.There's never anything to do."

  "Oh, rats!" said Crowther, and smiled. "There are not many fellows who dohalf as much. If to-day is a fair sample of your life, I'm damned if it'san easy one."

  "I'm used to it," said Piers quickly. "You know, I'm awfully fond of mygrandfather--always have been. We suit each other marvellously well--insome ways." He paused a moment, then, with an effort, "I never told himeither, Crowther. I never told a soul."

  "No," Crowther said. "I don't see any reason that you should. But thewoman you marry--she is different. If you take her into your inner lifeat all, she is bound to come upon it sooner or later. You must see it,lad. You know it in your heart."

  "And you think she will marry me when she knows I'm a--murderer?" Piersuttered the word through clenched teeth. He had the haggard look of a manwho has endured long suffering.

  There was deep compassion in Crowther's eyes as he watched him. "I don'tthink--being a woman--she will put it in that way," he said, "not, thatis, if she loves you."

  "How else could she put it?" demanded Piers harshly. "Is there any otherway of putting it? I killed the man intentionally. I told you so at thetime. The fellow who taught me the trick warned me that it would almostcertainly be fatal to a heavy man taken unawares. Why, he himself is nowdoing five years' penal servitude for the very same thing. Oh, I'm not ahumbug, Crowther. I bolted from the consequences. You made me bolt. ButI've often wished to heaven since that I'd stayed and faced it out. Itwould have been easier in the end, God knows."

  "My dear fellow," Crowther said, "you will never convince me of that aslong as you live. There was nothing to gain by your staying and all tolose. Consequences there were bound to be--and always are. But there wasno good purpose to be served by wrecking your life. You were only a boy,and the luck was against you. I couldn't have stood by and seen youdragged under."

  Piers groaned. "I sometimes wish I was dead!" he said.

  "My dear chap, what's the good of that?" Crowther slipped his hand fromhis shoulder to his arm, and drew him quietly forward. "You've sufferedinfernally, but it's made a man of you. Don't forget that! It's theSculptor and the Clay, lad. He knows how best to fashion a good thing. Itisn't for the clay to cry out."

  "Is that your point of view?" Piers spoke with reckless bitterness. "Itisn't mine."

  "You'll come to it," said Crowther gently.

  They walked on for a space in silence, till turning they began to ascendthe winding path that led up to the hotel,--the path which Piers hadwatched Crowther ascend that morning.

  Side by side they mounted, till half-way up Crowther checked theirprogress. "Piers," he said, "I'm grateful to you for enduring myinterference in this matter."

  "Pshaw!" said Piers, "I owe you that much anyhow."

  "You owe me nothing," said Crowther emphatically. "What I did for you, Idid for myself. I've rather a weakness--it's a very ordinary one too--fortrying to manage other people's concerns. And there's something so fineabout you that I can't bear to stand aside and see you mess up your own.So, sonny,--for my satisfaction,--will you promise me not to take a wrongturning over this?"

  He spoke very earnestly, with a pleading that could not give offence.Piers' face softened almost in spite of him. "You're an awfully goodchap," he said.

  "Promise me, lad!" pleaded Crowther, still holding his arm in a friendlygrasp; then as Piers hesitated: "You know, I'm an older man than youare. I can see further. You'll be making your own hell if you don't."

  "But why should I promise?" said Piers uneasily.

  "Because I know you will keep a promise--even against your own judgment."Simply, with absolute conviction, Crowther made reply. "I shan't feelhappy about you--unless you promise."

  Piers smiled a little, but the lines about his mouth were grim. "Oh, allright," he said, after a moment, "I promise;--for I think you are right,Crowther. I think too that I should probably have to tell her--whether Iwanted to or not. She's that sort--the sort that none but a skunk coulddeceive. But--" his voice altered suddenly; he turned brooding eyes uponthe sleeping sea--"I wonder if she will forgive me," he said."I--wonder."

  "Does she love you?" said Crowther.

  Piers' eyes flashed round at him. "I can make her love me," he said.

  "You are sure?"

  "I am sure."

  "Then, my son, she'll forgive you. And if you want to play a straightgame, tell her soon!" said Crowther.

  And Piers, with all the light gone out of his eyes, answered soberly,"I will."